Glittering Images (58 page)

‘Tell me.’

‘If she’d been sleeping with him it would have burnt itself out by this time. It’s only the unconsummated passions of this world which go on and on like a never-ending gramophone record, and personally I always think it’s better to leap into bed and have done with it – although of course I shouldn’t say that to a clergyman. God, what a dreadful clergyman I’d have been! It was bad enough trying to behave like a doctor … Shall I tell you about the woman with the very curious breasts in Rangoon?’

‘Tell me anything you like. Have some more brandy.’

‘Don’t mind if I do, old chap. Marvellous host you are – but aren’t you having any more yourself?’

‘I don’t want the Dean defrocking me after Evensong. Look, Alan, I shouldn’t have told you about Lyle – I must be going round the bend –’

‘My dear Charles,
don’t worry.
I’m the soul of discretion – you talk to Bea. She has no idea who’s sleeping with who in Starvale St James, but I know it all right down to the last bedpost –’

‘But I should at least have kept my mouth shut about Jardine –’

Why? I’m thrilled to think he might have had a luscious young girl to cheer him up after a disastrous marriage – although in fact I suspect it’s more likely he picked an older woman to soothe him, just as I picked my Chinese lady. I put my money on that mysterious Swedish stepmother, even if she did weigh sixteen stone. I rather like buxom women myself. Shall I tell you about – no, I most definitely shan’t. Got to keep myself in control.’

‘I seem to have lost control altogether. I can’t think why on earth I –’

‘I shall take great pride in proving my magnificent discretion, and meanwhile I’m absolutely delighted that you’ve got an attractive girl lined up – but how are you going to lure her from that palace? Of course if you weren’t a clergyman I’d tell you to seduce her as soon as possible; once you’d got her into bed she’d soon forget about Jardine, even if she was his mistress.’

‘“Get thee behind me, Satan!”’

‘I mean it, old chap! Any young sprig of thirty-seven can knock spots off an old warhorse of – how old’s Jardine?’

‘Fifty-eight.’

‘Well, there you are. Past his prime like me. I can still do it, of course, but I’m really only at my youngest now in the early mornings – and Bea can’t stand looking at anything, let alone me with my pyjama flies open, before she’s had her first cup of tea and read the headlines of the
Daily Express.
But that’s marriage, isn’t it? One long compromise … What did you say your wife’s name was, Charles?’

‘No, I’m sorry but I’m not going to tell you about Jane, not yet. I’ve already told you quite enough for one afternoon –’

‘Let me slink off to the Blue Boar and give you a breather.’

‘Drink up that brandy and I’ll take you for a walk along the Backs.’

‘The Dean’s sermon wasn’t nearly as good as yours, Charles, but never mind, it was a very pleasant Evensong. Now I expect you’ve been thinking: how on earth am I going to get rid of the old bore, but don’t worry because the Old Bore is now going to slink off to the Blue Boar and commune in reverent silence with that delectable bottle of Johnnie Walker –’

‘Come back to College and we’ll have some bread and cheese in my rooms. I don’t like to think of you all alone with a delectable bottle of Johnnie Walker. My conscience tells me you need to be saved from that sort of fate very firmly indeed.’

‘Oh, I love being saved!’ said Romaine. ‘Thank you so much – I say, can I have another sip of that nice brandy with my bread and cheese?’

‘… so I go and see this monk two or three times a week and I talk about things and he sorts me out when I get in a muddle … well, all right, just half a glass more – I don’t usually drink twice a day –’

‘A little extra claret will be very good for you after all your hard work. Now before I slink off to the Blue Boar –’

‘I’ve heard that one before.’

‘– you must tell me all about this monk. I’m so glad you’ve got someone to talk to, Charles, because life’s so bloody difficult sometimes, no one knows that better than I do, and I can see so clearly how difficult it must have been for you growing up with … well, with problems –’

Oh, shut up and have some more claret. I wish I’d never told you about my damned problems, I can’t think why I’m telling you all these private and personal things, I’ll hate myself after you’ve gone –’

‘No, don’t do that. Go and see your monk instead and tell him how bloody awful I was, drinking you out of house and home and clinging to you hour after hour like some elderly incubus. Then once you’ve expended all your anger on me you’ll feel better.’

We looked at each other over the claret decanter in the twilit room. After a long moment I said, ‘You’re very shrewd, aren’t you? I’ve spent all day giving myself away and now you’ve got me neatly summed up.’

‘Nonsense! Human beings are much too complicated to be summed up neatly after a few hours’ acquaintance. Let’s just say we’ve spent the day exchanging clues about ourselves – and meanwhile think of all the fun we’ve had, thanks to your kindness and generosity!’

‘I just can’t imagine how I’m going to cope with you – the whole problem’s got quite out of control –’

‘Impossible,’ said Romaine firmly, ‘because there’s no problem in the first place. You don’t have to cope with me. I’ll just go on pottering around Starvale St James and occasionally popping up to Cambridge to hear you preach and eventually I’ll drop dead and that’ll be that. Bea will have to cope if ever I become senile or bedridden, and all you’ll have to do in those undeniably sordid circumstances will be to give Starvale St James the widest possible berth.’

‘Not a chance. I’ll be there at the death-bed feeling muddled up.’ I drank deeply from my glass.

‘Oh, I shouldn’t like that at all,’ said Romaine. ‘I’d be very cross. Promise me no death-bed visits! So Victorian, so dreary, so
dull
!’

‘Not necessarily. I’d bring a bottle of champagne.’

‘My dear boy, what a lovely thought! It reminds me of Chekhov. Did you know that on his death-bed Chekhov tossed off a glass of champers and died with a beatific smile on his face?’

We started to laugh. At last I said, ‘Forgive me. I’ve been intolerably rude again.’

‘You put everything right by offering to bring me champagne on my death-bed! Don’t worry, Charles, I understand. I know you don’t need me in your life at the moment – I’m just distracting you from the things that are really important, but I’d like to think that one day I might be useful to you in some way. After all, God must have brought us together for a purpose, mustn’t he, and if he’d wanted us to remain strangers he wouldn’t have made it so easy for us to be friends. In fact in my opinion what’s happening is crystal clear: he’s redeeming my past by showing that something good came out of all that tragedy and failure, and he’s giving you – for reasons we don’t yet know – someone else in your life whom you can trust to be loyal to you no matter what the circumstances. Is that really such a sinister prospect? I don’t think so, and if you talk it all over with that monk of yours I’ll wager you a bottle of Johnnie Walker he agrees with me. And talking of Johnnie Walker I know you’re thinking the time really has come when I should slink off to the Blue Boar –’

‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘You need to be saved again. It’s time for another round of black coffee.’

At three o’clock the following afternoon I once more turned up on the doorstep of the Fordite monks and sank into the nearest chair in the Visitors’ Parlour. I had had a strenuous morning, celebrating Communion in the Cathedral’s Lady Chapel, parting from Romaine at the Blue Boar and attending a chapter meeting presided over by an irritable Dean who was in the middle of a quarrel with the Head Verger. Lunch had been spent soothing the Master of Laud’s (also embroiled in a quarrel with the Dean) and responding tactfully to the assertions of the Master’s wife that all clergymen should be celibate. (The wife of the Dean was universally unpopular.) It was with profound relief that I escaped afterwards to Grantchester.

‘I can’t imagine why you thought the situation would become clearer once I’d seen Romaine again,’ I said irritably to Darrow after I had given him an account of Romaine’s visit. ‘I feel in a worse muddle than ever. I don’t deny I like the old villain, but he still frightens the life out of me.’

‘Some degree of distrust may well be healthy at this stage – in fact I’d be far more worried if you’d whole-heartedly embraced him as a father-figure and were displaying unmistakable signs of hero-worship.’

This comment encouraged me. Once I was assured of my stability I found I could try to analyse my feelings with more precision. ‘I do feel much better about my parents,’ I conceded. ‘No doubt they’ll continue to drive me to distraction but at least I feel I’ve created an atmosphere of trust and truth which will enable me to deal with them without hiding behind my glittering image. But Romaine! I’ve got no confidence there at all.’

‘Are you still seeing him as evidence that you’re doomed to go to the dogs?’

‘No, that view just represents my father at his most irrational, I can see that now.’

‘But nevertheless Romaine still frightens you.’

‘Perhaps it would be more accurate to say he makes me feel acutely anxious. He really
is
an awful old villain, Father – I’m sure I’m not imagining it –’

‘I think it’s most unlikely that this judgement is entirely the product of your imagination, but you could be exaggerating out of sheer fright. Can you single out any detail which made you feel uneasy?’

‘He didn’t attend any of the Communion services.’

‘Ah. Yes, I’d wondered about that too.’

Again I was sufficiently encouraged to analyse my feelings further. ‘After all,’ I said, ‘there he was, hanging on my every word at Matins and Evensong. Perhaps he felt the sung Eucharist was too High Church for him, but why didn’t he turn up today or yesterday at Early Communion? Wouldn’t you think he’d be eager to be first at the rail as I administered the sacrament?’

‘Maybe he has a very protestant inclination to attend mass only occasionally. But yes, I do think it’s odd he didn’t decide that yesterday should be one of those occasions.’

‘Well, once I began to wonder if he was in a state of grace,’ I said, finally finding that I could approach the root of my distrust, ‘I began to wonder if he was entirely happy with his wife who not only holds the purse-strings but guards the whisky decanter. I know he’s a churchwarden and ought to be respectability personified, but I’ve got a nasty suspicion that his Christian beliefs might not necessarily prevent him pursuing a life of adultery, heavy drinking and goodness knows what else. But perhaps I’m being completely unjust to him.’

‘Perhaps, but I don’t think you’re being ridiculous, Charles, or even excessively cynical. Your suspicions strike me as being real possibilities. Supposing in fact that you’re right; how far would this shady private life of his impinge on your own life far away in Cambridge?’

‘That,’ I said, greatly relieved that I could at last not only perceive but voice the truth, ‘is what makes me anxious. If his marriage breaks up or if he finally gets struck off the register for sleeping with patients, I’d have to help him – but what a prospect! Tell me how I can stop myself having nightmares about him turning up ruined and penniless on my doorstep one day!’

‘You could try telling yourself the nightmares may never happen.’

‘I wish I felt as sanguine about that as you apparently do.’

‘Well, consider, Charles. Romaine, as you yourself have told me, is a wily old survivor and wily old survivors, like wily old cats, usually have a very keen sense of when to make a mess and when to keep their paws clean. After many vicissitudes Romaine now has a comfortable home, a pleasant practice and a wealthy wife who provides him with a guaranteed source of whisky and sex. This, from Romaine’s point of view, is as close to heaven as he’s likely to get on this earth and he’s going to fight any temptation which will represent a one-way ticket to hell. I think you can allow yourself some cautious optimism here, Charles, I really do.’

For the first time since the start of the interview I was able to relax in my chair. ‘Awful old villain!’ I said. ‘But what fun we had! And at the end … Well, I couldn’t help feeling moved when he said God was redeeming the past by bringing me into his life. Of course I know it sounds appallingly sloppy and sentimental, but at the time –’

‘– at the time Dr Romaine was making a masterly attempt to capture your heart, and who can blame him? I must say, he sounds on very familiar terms with God, but then one never quite knows with laymen whether that indicates arrogance, reverence or ignorance.’

‘He seemed reverent enough but of course he fell into the layman’s trap of assuming he knew exactly what God has in mind. However since Romaine and I have only just met and we’ve no real perspective on what’s going on, any discussion of God’s purpose here can at present only be unprofitable – or at least,’ I added, fearing he might think me too dogmatic, ‘so if seems to me.’

But Darrow said without hesitation, ‘I agree,’ before asking, ‘When are you seeing him again?’

‘The shrewd old villain took care not to make me feel persecuted – he didn’t pin me down to any date. But he’ll be back. Of that I’m quite sure.’